Pablo Escobar’s Legacy – A Look At Colombia’s Lost Generation Of Hit-Men
Pablo Escobar’s Legacy – A Look At Colombia’s Lost Generation Of Hit-Men
Published by Julie King June 5, 2015 11:30 am
Colombia’s most infamous Medellin drug cartel, led by Pablo Escobar during the 1980s and early 1990s, managed to ruin the lives of thousands of Colombian youngsters. Throughout these decades, children of eight, nine, ten years old entered the criminal world as hit men for Escobar’s Cartel. Commonly known as “Sicarios”, they all tried to make a living and support their loved ones. Though the notorious drug lord was killed by U.S. and Colombian police forces in 1993, the legacy of the sicarios lives on.
Nowadays, Colombian hit men are more centered in their neighborhood gangs than to any cartel. During Escobar’s domination of the region, however, the sicarios averaged killing one person every three hours. In exchange, they received money, weapons, and cocaine.
(Pablo Escobar)
According to 1990 statistics (at the height of the cartel’s power), the Medellin Cartel paid their assassins US $3,500 to kill a uniformed police officer, US $8,800 to kill a police officer dressed in civilian clothing, and US $880,000 to kill a general. Faced with poverty and scarce access to education, the Colombian boys were naturally attracted to Escobar’s gang. His cartel was willing to pay for only one murder 15 times the national minimum wage for an entire month.
The Profile Of A Colombian Hit-man
The typical profile of a Colombian assassin is terrifying. He is usually a male youth from a humble family, with a single or abandoned mother. Most of them lived under physical and mental abuse from family and peers. Generally, the hit man grows up in a world of violence. His only form of survival seems to lie within the illegality of drug trafficking, theft and murder. During a supposed age of innocence, these traumatized boys transformed into dysfunctional adults and, down the line, into killing machines without a trace of remorse.
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